I normally use these introductions to set up the conversation you’re about to read. I’ll explain a little about the article that inspired it. I’ll highlight whatever aspect of it my reader had an issue with. Sometimes I’ll even provide a little context or back story. Yet today I can’t do any of that, because I’m still not sure what the heck the conversation was meant to be about!
I used to start arguments with people and use logic and reason but I wasn't very good at it and lost all those arguments.
Now I start arguments with people and simply act aloof and superior, in a sort of a faux-wise way, without ever even discussing the issues. I'm able to convince myself I'm winning these arguments.
This commenter did get one thing right. Storytelling is sometimes a more effective, and more legitimate, means of persuasion than logical arguments. Logical reasoning always has to start somewhere. It usually begins with a range of shared experiences that both parties take for granted, and often don’t even mention. In a legal brief, each side always begins with a list of alleged facts, and can’t proceed into the arguments before those facts are agreed upon. Any real life written argument will contain not just premises and conclusions, but background stories which are necessary for the argument to be comprehensible at all.
If there is a lack of shared background experience between two people, they will talk past each other if they try to communicate with argument alone. This is what prompts many marginalized people to dismiss the arguments of privileged people with the ad hominem “your argument should be ignored because you are white, male etc.” Under certain circumstances, I think this response has some validity. (And I say this as someone who has so much privilege that I will never be entitled to make that response myself.) If the privileged person’s response shows a sufficient level of cluelessness, it will be obvious that any attempt to communicate using argument alone will be futile.
I believe, however, that in such circumstances you can sometimes change people’s minds with stories, even when arguments will be futile. That’s because stories can create a simulation of the background experiences that underlie the premises of any arguments about that topic. To illustrate that point, let me tell you a story.
For years, I’ve been annoyed by the complaints about the “Magic Negro” trope. Those complaints seem to be a perfect example of the principle that “if you spend your whole life as a nail, everything looks like a hammer.” If you show a black person as being stupid, he’s Jim Crow. If you show him as being smart, he’s a Magic Negro. So what is the preferred alternative? There’s nothing left. Some Black people are going to get pissed off no matter how they see themselves represented on the screen, and they’ll get even more pissed off if they’re not represented at all. It’s understandable that everything looks like a hammer from their perspective, but that doesn’t mean everything actually is a hammer.
That’s pretty darn good argument-- a disjunctive syllogism to be precise. But it got completely blown out of the water when I saw this comedy sketch by Key and Peele.
After I saw this sketch, I was able to actually feel, at least vicariously, why the Magic Negro trope is so annoying to so many black people, and that radically changed all of my thinking about the topic. There were no arguments in the sketch. It just slightly exaggerated how the trope is usually played, so I could be annoyed even though I had no skin in the game. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one). Several new arguments did come to mind for me as a result of having seen this. I think the real issue is that these characters don’t have any back story of their own, not the fact that they were wise. I think that if there were more stories with black protagonists, fewer Black people would get upset about those movies in which Black people were only sidekicks and gurus. I don’t want to develop that point any further here, however, because my point is that it was the story, not any argument, that enabled me to think outside the box of my original argument.
I think you are already aware of this, Steve, because you have already written (at least) two stories for Medium which are persuasive in this way.
You do explain your point with something like arguments at the end of each story, but the stories are still persuasive on their own. And that, I think, was the goal of the commenter who said “your privilege is showing.” He thought that the only reason you don’t accept every chapter and verse of the Book of Woke is that you are blinded by privilege, and think you couldn’t possibly have privilege because you are black. So the commenter figured if he told you the story of how a Mexican could have privilege somewhere and not have it somewhere else, the scales would fall from your eyes and you wouldn’t hate wokeness any more. That’s a pretty dumb strategy, but I think that’s what he was shooting for.
Hey Steve. I know you get probably a million comments a day and I don't expect a response to this. I came to your substack after an unpleasant Instagram interaction today seeking clarity in your writing. In your original piece that spurred this one, you said "instead of condemning those who judge us by the color of our skin, we gleefully judge other people by the color of theirs." This is my primary confusion with so much of what is happening in racial dialogues right now. The interaction I had on Instagram is just churning around in my head so much, and it's sort of making me feel crazy.
So today on Instagram, I saw a post by a guy who has "anti-identity politics" in his bio. He had posted something, which I disagree with, with the caption that said "Let's discuss!" So... I posted my take on what he said. Essentially he was arguing that when non-vegans say that a vegan agenda is harmful to indigenous peoples, they are just using indigenous people to maintain their immoral pleasure of eating meat. In my line of work, I am in near constant contact with people (indigenous, peasant farmers, activists, all kinds of people) who are demanding for NGOs in conservation and corporations in agriculture to decolonize their agendas, many of whom have intersections in the vegan movement/animal rights groups (i.e. Bill Gates & AGRA or the vegan Norwegian billionaire who created the plant-based EAT Lancet diet or "Global Diet"/WWF burning indigenous villages down and removing people from their lands to "conserve" wildlife etc). I have also recently interviewed a public health doctor from India who is advocating for the rights of dalits and adivasi Indians to have access to animal foods because of Modi's fascist regime which is literally killing and imprisoning people for eating animal foods. Anyway, I clearly have a different perspective. So I asked if he was aware of these things, maybe with a little bit too much spice, but nothing outright rude, and certainly nothing personal.
So this dude happens to be living in India (which I didn't know or assume just based on looking at him), and his first response is to tell me that I, a white person, am "wokesplaining" colonization to the colonized. He didn't engage with my ideas at all, but essentially just discounted me based purely on his own identity politics, saying that as a vegan from Northern India, he won't listen to a westerners perspective (ironic coming from someone who literally has "anti-identity politics" in his bio) when in reality I a) figured he'd be open to dissent given the caption about discussion, and b) am trying to uplift the voices of the people I work with who are directly affected by these colonial policies and are activists who are often silenced for their views. Another comment followed with someone else immediately calling out how I'm a white person and how my "folks" colonized India for 2 generations– no mention of the actual human beings I'm trying to advocate for, just an attack on my credibility due to something utterly out of my control like my skin color. I replied asking them to engage with my ideas rather than just immediately dismissing me on the basis of my race (and I also called out the hypocrisy of the page being anti-idpol but then immediately devolving to idpol attacks the moment someone disagrees). As far as I have seen, they haven't replied.
I suppose my real question here is, is it not more racist for me to NOT challenge the opinions of people I disagree with because of the color of their skin? Wouldn't that be horribly patronizing of me? Is it not racist for them to immediately pull MY race into the conversation, when I would never in a million years discount another human beings perspective on the basis of their race, let alone make racialized assumptions about them & their lives? I'm just so confused. How is this social justice?
I did apologize for perhaps being more confrontational than necessary, but I certainly said nothing egregious. I'm just a passionate person! I wasn't trying to attack, but rather be like "hey, this type of harm DOES exist in the vegan movement." This just confuses me so much, like we all have blindspots about how the world is working around us, and that's okay. The best thing we can do is try to expand the aperture on our worldview to make more sense of it. But in this context, because I'm white, I can't talk about the colonialism that I know is happening in the world if it challenges the beliefs of a person of color? As if I made the conscious decision to be born white and be raised in a colony? How do we make a better world if white people aren't even allowed to advocate for the marginalized?
Again, I don't expect a response to this. I suppose I just wanted to put my thoughts somewhere where people might be willing to help me see this with more clarity. I'm open to admitting my faults. I just don't see how it's helpful at all for a dialogue to devolve to race like that and then no REAL ideas are ever discussed. Racism and colonialism truly disgust me more than anything and yet the number of times I have been called racist & colonialist based on nothing else but the color of my skin the past year is really sad. Why am I the enemy for actually caring– for actually trying to make the world a better place with my work? Will I remain the enemy until I denounce myself as a white supremacist and self-flagellate all over social media, or will it never end? How do we get through this?
Maybe narcissism. (Well, definitely narcissism!) But also maybe a person who isn't particularly articulate and who is not a very clear thinker either, and hell maybe drunk or high, who knows. Or just a sort of slow person who has had a tough life? I write reviews and I don't even bother with lengthy navel-gazing posts like this one in the comments thread. It often feels like the person can barely understand what they are trying to say and clearly they have a lot going on inside of them - and what's going on is not great. Why even engage? Mainly I just feel a sense of vaguely condescending sympathy and move on.
Wow. First I admire your patience Steve QJ! Yes this person is digging a hole for herself with every comment. I don't think she realizes it either. It's just more "narcissistic" ranting that goes in a gazillion directions. Glad you got in the last and only meaningful word(s).
First and foremost - this was an incredibly entertaining exchange. I know it wasn't meant to be comedic, but it was entertaining and had me laughing out loud in my office. However, it was also disturbing. What troubled me the most about the exchange is that Jas is apparently in a position of power influencing employees that supposedly report to her. That's scary...
Fairly often I get a rant comment that has nothing to do with what I wrote. I usually reply with, "what does that have to do with what I wrote?" There usually is no reply. I guess I've been privileged with fewer people who should have a breathalyzer on their keyboard than you. You certainly tried.
Wow. You have a crap-ton more patience than I do, engaging with such clueless narcissism. Or was it pro-level trolling? At some points it was hard to tell. But I salute your willingness to call-out the narcissism by name. From what I’ve seen, it’s a central feature of today’s social media driven trans movement: their navel gazing and sermonizing are endless. And I’m glad to see you not fall for the “privilege” line. Or should I say “cliché”?
In any case, bravo!!! You are always a pleasure to read, even when I disagree (which is rarely, tbh).
Summary:
I used to start arguments with people and use logic and reason but I wasn't very good at it and lost all those arguments.
Now I start arguments with people and simply act aloof and superior, in a sort of a faux-wise way, without ever even discussing the issues. I'm able to convince myself I'm winning these arguments.
This commenter did get one thing right. Storytelling is sometimes a more effective, and more legitimate, means of persuasion than logical arguments. Logical reasoning always has to start somewhere. It usually begins with a range of shared experiences that both parties take for granted, and often don’t even mention. In a legal brief, each side always begins with a list of alleged facts, and can’t proceed into the arguments before those facts are agreed upon. Any real life written argument will contain not just premises and conclusions, but background stories which are necessary for the argument to be comprehensible at all.
If there is a lack of shared background experience between two people, they will talk past each other if they try to communicate with argument alone. This is what prompts many marginalized people to dismiss the arguments of privileged people with the ad hominem “your argument should be ignored because you are white, male etc.” Under certain circumstances, I think this response has some validity. (And I say this as someone who has so much privilege that I will never be entitled to make that response myself.) If the privileged person’s response shows a sufficient level of cluelessness, it will be obvious that any attempt to communicate using argument alone will be futile.
I believe, however, that in such circumstances you can sometimes change people’s minds with stories, even when arguments will be futile. That’s because stories can create a simulation of the background experiences that underlie the premises of any arguments about that topic. To illustrate that point, let me tell you a story.
For years, I’ve been annoyed by the complaints about the “Magic Negro” trope. Those complaints seem to be a perfect example of the principle that “if you spend your whole life as a nail, everything looks like a hammer.” If you show a black person as being stupid, he’s Jim Crow. If you show him as being smart, he’s a Magic Negro. So what is the preferred alternative? There’s nothing left. Some Black people are going to get pissed off no matter how they see themselves represented on the screen, and they’ll get even more pissed off if they’re not represented at all. It’s understandable that everything looks like a hammer from their perspective, but that doesn’t mean everything actually is a hammer.
That’s pretty darn good argument-- a disjunctive syllogism to be precise. But it got completely blown out of the water when I saw this comedy sketch by Key and Peele.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jInlO6-JTww
After I saw this sketch, I was able to actually feel, at least vicariously, why the Magic Negro trope is so annoying to so many black people, and that radically changed all of my thinking about the topic. There were no arguments in the sketch. It just slightly exaggerated how the trope is usually played, so I could be annoyed even though I had no skin in the game. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one). Several new arguments did come to mind for me as a result of having seen this. I think the real issue is that these characters don’t have any back story of their own, not the fact that they were wise. I think that if there were more stories with black protagonists, fewer Black people would get upset about those movies in which Black people were only sidekicks and gurus. I don’t want to develop that point any further here, however, because my point is that it was the story, not any argument, that enabled me to think outside the box of my original argument.
I think you are already aware of this, Steve, because you have already written (at least) two stories for Medium which are persuasive in this way.
https://steveqj.medium.com/?p=c0ab4a39c7bc
https://level.medium.com/this-is-the-way-the-n-word-dies-ab51167bf9d0
You do explain your point with something like arguments at the end of each story, but the stories are still persuasive on their own. And that, I think, was the goal of the commenter who said “your privilege is showing.” He thought that the only reason you don’t accept every chapter and verse of the Book of Woke is that you are blinded by privilege, and think you couldn’t possibly have privilege because you are black. So the commenter figured if he told you the story of how a Mexican could have privilege somewhere and not have it somewhere else, the scales would fall from your eyes and you wouldn’t hate wokeness any more. That’s a pretty dumb strategy, but I think that’s what he was shooting for.
Hey Steve. I know you get probably a million comments a day and I don't expect a response to this. I came to your substack after an unpleasant Instagram interaction today seeking clarity in your writing. In your original piece that spurred this one, you said "instead of condemning those who judge us by the color of our skin, we gleefully judge other people by the color of theirs." This is my primary confusion with so much of what is happening in racial dialogues right now. The interaction I had on Instagram is just churning around in my head so much, and it's sort of making me feel crazy.
So today on Instagram, I saw a post by a guy who has "anti-identity politics" in his bio. He had posted something, which I disagree with, with the caption that said "Let's discuss!" So... I posted my take on what he said. Essentially he was arguing that when non-vegans say that a vegan agenda is harmful to indigenous peoples, they are just using indigenous people to maintain their immoral pleasure of eating meat. In my line of work, I am in near constant contact with people (indigenous, peasant farmers, activists, all kinds of people) who are demanding for NGOs in conservation and corporations in agriculture to decolonize their agendas, many of whom have intersections in the vegan movement/animal rights groups (i.e. Bill Gates & AGRA or the vegan Norwegian billionaire who created the plant-based EAT Lancet diet or "Global Diet"/WWF burning indigenous villages down and removing people from their lands to "conserve" wildlife etc). I have also recently interviewed a public health doctor from India who is advocating for the rights of dalits and adivasi Indians to have access to animal foods because of Modi's fascist regime which is literally killing and imprisoning people for eating animal foods. Anyway, I clearly have a different perspective. So I asked if he was aware of these things, maybe with a little bit too much spice, but nothing outright rude, and certainly nothing personal.
So this dude happens to be living in India (which I didn't know or assume just based on looking at him), and his first response is to tell me that I, a white person, am "wokesplaining" colonization to the colonized. He didn't engage with my ideas at all, but essentially just discounted me based purely on his own identity politics, saying that as a vegan from Northern India, he won't listen to a westerners perspective (ironic coming from someone who literally has "anti-identity politics" in his bio) when in reality I a) figured he'd be open to dissent given the caption about discussion, and b) am trying to uplift the voices of the people I work with who are directly affected by these colonial policies and are activists who are often silenced for their views. Another comment followed with someone else immediately calling out how I'm a white person and how my "folks" colonized India for 2 generations– no mention of the actual human beings I'm trying to advocate for, just an attack on my credibility due to something utterly out of my control like my skin color. I replied asking them to engage with my ideas rather than just immediately dismissing me on the basis of my race (and I also called out the hypocrisy of the page being anti-idpol but then immediately devolving to idpol attacks the moment someone disagrees). As far as I have seen, they haven't replied.
I suppose my real question here is, is it not more racist for me to NOT challenge the opinions of people I disagree with because of the color of their skin? Wouldn't that be horribly patronizing of me? Is it not racist for them to immediately pull MY race into the conversation, when I would never in a million years discount another human beings perspective on the basis of their race, let alone make racialized assumptions about them & their lives? I'm just so confused. How is this social justice?
I did apologize for perhaps being more confrontational than necessary, but I certainly said nothing egregious. I'm just a passionate person! I wasn't trying to attack, but rather be like "hey, this type of harm DOES exist in the vegan movement." This just confuses me so much, like we all have blindspots about how the world is working around us, and that's okay. The best thing we can do is try to expand the aperture on our worldview to make more sense of it. But in this context, because I'm white, I can't talk about the colonialism that I know is happening in the world if it challenges the beliefs of a person of color? As if I made the conscious decision to be born white and be raised in a colony? How do we make a better world if white people aren't even allowed to advocate for the marginalized?
Again, I don't expect a response to this. I suppose I just wanted to put my thoughts somewhere where people might be willing to help me see this with more clarity. I'm open to admitting my faults. I just don't see how it's helpful at all for a dialogue to devolve to race like that and then no REAL ideas are ever discussed. Racism and colonialism truly disgust me more than anything and yet the number of times I have been called racist & colonialist based on nothing else but the color of my skin the past year is really sad. Why am I the enemy for actually caring– for actually trying to make the world a better place with my work? Will I remain the enemy until I denounce myself as a white supremacist and self-flagellate all over social media, or will it never end? How do we get through this?
Maybe narcissism. (Well, definitely narcissism!) But also maybe a person who isn't particularly articulate and who is not a very clear thinker either, and hell maybe drunk or high, who knows. Or just a sort of slow person who has had a tough life? I write reviews and I don't even bother with lengthy navel-gazing posts like this one in the comments thread. It often feels like the person can barely understand what they are trying to say and clearly they have a lot going on inside of them - and what's going on is not great. Why even engage? Mainly I just feel a sense of vaguely condescending sympathy and move on.
Wow. First I admire your patience Steve QJ! Yes this person is digging a hole for herself with every comment. I don't think she realizes it either. It's just more "narcissistic" ranting that goes in a gazillion directions. Glad you got in the last and only meaningful word(s).
First and foremost - this was an incredibly entertaining exchange. I know it wasn't meant to be comedic, but it was entertaining and had me laughing out loud in my office. However, it was also disturbing. What troubled me the most about the exchange is that Jas is apparently in a position of power influencing employees that supposedly report to her. That's scary...
Fairly often I get a rant comment that has nothing to do with what I wrote. I usually reply with, "what does that have to do with what I wrote?" There usually is no reply. I guess I've been privileged with fewer people who should have a breathalyzer on their keyboard than you. You certainly tried.
Wow. You have a crap-ton more patience than I do, engaging with such clueless narcissism. Or was it pro-level trolling? At some points it was hard to tell. But I salute your willingness to call-out the narcissism by name. From what I’ve seen, it’s a central feature of today’s social media driven trans movement: their navel gazing and sermonizing are endless. And I’m glad to see you not fall for the “privilege” line. Or should I say “cliché”?
In any case, bravo!!! You are always a pleasure to read, even when I disagree (which is rarely, tbh).